A never-before-released performance of Mozart’s magical last opera under the baton of Sir Georg Solti.

Filmed at the Salzburg Festival in the Mozart Bicentenary Year of 1991 it has been retrieved from the festival archives specially to celebrate the centenary of the legendary Hungarian maestro.

Solti’s long association with Die Zauberflöte (“The Magic Flute”) actually began in Salzburg in 1937 when, as Toscanini’s assistant, he played the opera’s important glockenspiel part (depicting Papageno’s magic bells). 54 years later, as one of the world’s most renowned conductors, Sir Georg once again played the glockenspiel for this production – a unique and delightful feature of this film.

Although contemporary with Solti’s 1991 CD recording of the opera (also with the Vienna Philharmonic and the Chorus of the Vienna State Opera), this DVD performance features a treasurably different cast, including South African lyric tenor Deon van der Walt as Tamino, leading Italian coloratura soprano Luciana Serra as the Queen of the Night and a young René Pape in his breakthrough role as Sarastro.